VERO BEACH, FL. Back in February 2026, state inspectors walked into Railroad Citgo, a convenience store on the Indian River County side of Vero Beach, and found cooked chicken sitting in a steam table at internal temperatures between 110°F and 115°F, roughly 20 degrees below the minimum safe holding threshold.
The chicken was voluntarily discarded on the spot. A stop sale order was issued and then released during the same visit.
That was one of 18 violations documented during the February 19 inspection, which also turned up a more fundamental problem: the store was operating without a valid food permit at the time inspectors arrived.
What Inspectors Found
The temperature problem at the steam table was the most immediate food safety concern. Inspector notes recorded "containers of cooked chicken with internal temperatures between 110°F and 115°F when probed located inside steam table." All products were voluntarily discarded during the inspection.
The raw chicken issue was separate. A metal container of raw chicken probed at 43°F to 44°F was found sitting next to the cooking station, outside of proper cold storage. It was moved to a stand-up cooler during the visit.
The sanitizer concentration added a third layer. A small bucket of sanitizer liquid used on food-contact surfaces tested above 400 parts per million, exceeding safe limits. The solution was disposed of and remixed to proper concentration while inspectors were still on site.
Cleaning agents were found stored on top of a prep table in the processing area. An employee's personal phone was sitting on top of the microwave. A personal purse was stored on top of prep food areas. All personal items were moved during the inspection.
The ovens and microwave had "food debris throughout," and the cooking station showed grease buildup. Multiple metal food pans stored under a prep counter had visible food debris and were sent to the wash sink during the inspection. The walk-in cooler floor had soil buildup throughout. A milk crate was being used as shelving inside the cooler.
The store also lacked paper towels at the restroom hand sink, had no sanitizer test kit available, and had food employees working without beard guards while handling exposed food. A large container of sugar in the retail area was not labeled with the common name of its contents.
What These Violations Mean
The hot-holding failure at the steam table is the violation with the most direct risk to anyone who bought a hot food item at this store on February 19. Cooked chicken held between 110°F and 115°F has dropped into the temperature range where bacterial growth accelerates rapidly. The state standard of 135°F exists precisely because pathogens like Salmonella and Staphylococcus aureus multiply quickly in the gap between 70°F and 130°F. The longer food sits in that range, the greater the risk to the person who eats it.
Operating without a valid food permit is not a paperwork technicality. A permit is how regulators track whether a facility has met baseline requirements for food handling, equipment, and sanitation. When a store is selling prepared hot food without one, there is no current regulatory verification that the operation meets those standards.
The sanitizer concentration violation cuts in a counterintuitive direction. Too little sanitizer is the more familiar problem, but sanitizer above 400 ppm on food-contact surfaces can leave chemical residue on equipment that then transfers to food. The store had no test kit to measure concentration, meaning employees had no reliable way to know whether their sanitizer was within safe limits on any given day.
Cleaning agents stored on a prep table represent a contamination pathway. If a bottle tips or leaks onto a food surface or into food being prepared nearby, the result is chemical contamination of whatever is being sold.
The Longer Record
The February 2026 inspection was not Railroad Citgo's first encounter with serious violations. In February 2025, exactly one year earlier, inspectors documented 12 violations during an identical inspection type, also flagged as operating without a valid food permit. That inspection resulted in a required check-back.
The store passed focused check-back inspections in April and May 2025 with zero violations. Then in September 2025, a product re-inspection returned 16 violations, including one repeat citation, the highest violation count in the store's recent history.
Two more check-back inspections in October and November 2025 again showed zero violations. The February 2026 inspection, the seventh on record in the past year, produced 18 violations and three priority-level citations.
The pattern across six inspections is a store that clears check-back thresholds and then accumulates violations again when a fuller inspection is conducted. The February 2025 and February 2026 inspections share the same inspection type and the same permit violation, twelve months apart.
None of the 18 violations from the February 19 inspection were marked as corrected on site in the summary record, even though inspector notes document on-the-spot corrections for several individual items. The oven and cooking station grease buildup, the soil throughout the walk-in cooler floor, the absent beard guards, and the unlabeled sugar container had no documented resolution during the visit.